Staples and SunEdison, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials unveiled the largest single rooftop solar power installation in Maryland at Staples’ 200,200 square foot fulfillment center in Hanover. The 1.01-megawatt (MW) solar installation covers nearly 175,000 square feet of roof space.
Powerful Wisconsin legislators were first out of the gate in a brewing race to be the first to pass feed-in tariff legislation in the Midwest.
Here is a summary of a civil society consultation WRI had with the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), on the IEG’s review of the effectiveness of the WBG environmental and social safeguards.
The World Bank Group (WBG) has a number of policies to help ensure that its investments “do no
harm.” In the 1980s, in response to public criticism of its involvement in controversial projects—
such as Polonoroeste’s BR-364 Amazon highway program in Brazil that uprooted indigenous
communities, and the Narmada dam in India that displaced 90,000 people—the World Bank began
to develop a set of safeguard policies that require clients to consider the environmental and social
implications of projects. These policies now require clients to conduct an environmental assessment
and consider a project’s potential impacts on surrounding communities.
Similarly, the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) involvement in high profile projects led to
the adoption of similar policies. In 2006, the IFC adopted a set of “Performance Standards” to guide
its corporate clients in environmental and social risk management. Through these standards, the
IFC’s influence stretches far beyond financing projects, acting as a de facto “standard-setter” for
private sector environmental and social risk management in several high impact sectors, such as oil,
gas, and mining. More than 118 financial institutions worldwide have adopted the Performance
Standards into their own risk management systems.
On January 8th, 2010, the World Bank Group’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) met with 9
civil society groups in Washington DC at the World Resources Institute to discuss the IEG’s
upcoming report. The report will examine the World Bank’s and IFC’s implementation of the
environmental and social safeguard policies. The report is due out in March 2010, will likely
influence the review of the IFC performance standards, and may shape a future reform agenda for
the World Bank safeguards.
The following is a summary of issues that civil society participants raised during the meeting.
|
World Bank safeguard policies
|
IFC performance standards
|
Several participants emphasized that the IEG’s evaluation must consider whether WBG safeguard
policies meet global standards, such as international human rights and environmental law. While the
WBG may not have a legal obligation to meet these standards, in many cases its government and
company clients do.
One example is climate change finance. The WBG has argued that it should be the custodian for any
climate finance mechanisms that result from the UN climate change negotiations. One of the
WBG’s justifications is that is already has safeguard policies to apply to climate financing. However,
the safeguards do not encompass human rights, and in many cases are less stringent than the policies
of other multilateral development banks, such as the Asian Development Bank and the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The WBG’s lending portfolio is moving away from traditional “direct finance” in projects towards
other forms of “indirect” financing. At the IFC, this includes a shift towards financial intermediaries,
trade finance, asset management, and supply chains. At the World Bank, this includes a shift towards
“investment lending reform”—providing loans to governments at a broader programmatic or sector
level, and through development policy loans. Both IEG and civil society participants indicated that
the safeguards as currently designed do not effectively apply to these forms of indirect finance, and
in some cases do not apply at all. For example, safeguards do not seem to apply to the World Bank’s
development policy loans. There is a risk that the safeguards will increasingly only apply to a small
percentage of the WBG’s portfolio.
Furthermore, one participant argued that the WBG needs to update the safeguards more frequently
to reflect changing international norms. At the World Bank, it took nine years to update the 2001
indigenous peoples policy, and eleven years to update the 2006 physical cultural resources policy.
The 1999 environmental assessment policy was out of date before it even took effect.
When the IFC moved towards the Performance Standards in 2006, it adopted a new model of
safeguards that are “outcomes-based”—where IFC clients have to meet broadly defined principles,
rather than specific objectives. The IFC’s rationale for doing this was to give clients more flexibility,
so that IFC clients could choose which tools to use to achieve these results. But participants
emphasized that the new system has faced implementation problems, as IFC clients fail to meet the
outcomes, and IFC staff do not monitor to ensure that outcomes are met. Affected communities, in
turn, often lack confidence and trust in IFC or its clients. Because of this lack of trust, affected
communities need assurances that WBG clients will follow strict rules. Several participants indicated
that the World Bank should not move towards the IFC’s model.
Similarly, participants expressed concern with the World Bank’s “country safeguard systems”
approach, in which qualifying countries can substitute domestic laws for WBG policies. While the
Paris Declaration emphasizes the importance of this approach to build country capacity, in practice
the World Bank’s country safeguards approach devotes significant resources to procurement and
financing issues, but virtually ignores environmental and social safeguard issues.
Many participants emphasized that transparency and accountability are necessary to implement the
safeguards effectively. The IFC’s performance standard approach has focused on achieving results—
clients must demonstrate results, and can achieve those results however they choose. But
participants pointed out that the WBG publishes only aggregate results, and has not demonstrated to
the public that the development outcomes of its investments are truly making people better off.
IFC, for example, tends to implement and monitor projects behind closed doors. This is particularly
problematic with financial intermediaries, where the public does not know how these intermediaries
use IFC financing. Similarly, the IFC does not make public how it determines whether an affected
community has given its “broad community support.”
Accountability is also essential. What ensures that clients implement the WBG’s requirements? In
practice, the WBG will rarely cancel a loan for failure to comply with safeguard policies, so what
incentives do clients have to comply? There is an over-reliance on information from clients without
verification of what the client provides. Reporting requirements do not appear to be stringent, and
the WBG rarely discloses reports after project implementation begins. The WBG does not commit
substantial resources to monitoring and continued engagement with clients.
Participants also emphasized the importance of the accountability mechanisms—the World Bank
Inspection Panel and the IFC Compliance Advisor Ombudsman—to the safeguards. IEG is
considering the impact of these mechanisms within the safeguard system. Participants emphasized
the need for a strengthened role for these accountability mechanisms. These mechanisms can
provide recommendations to management, but this is insufficient to hold management accountable.
Many participants expressed the need for an expanded mandate to monitor the implementation of
the recommendations and produced a follow up public report on the WBG success in complying
with their recommendations.
Similarly, several participants pointed out that increased flexibility reduces accountability to affected
communities. Under the World Bank’s investment lending reform approach, clients have fewer
monitoring and reporting requirements, which could reduce WBG oversight over safeguard
implementation. For example, the WBG might approve a small-scale agricultural project, which a
client could then decide to expand into a large-scale project (with more significant impacts on local
communities). These changes could be made without the project going back to the Board of
Directors for new approval. The WBG needs to adequately monitor project implementation and if
the project design changes significantly they should need additional Board approval.
One participant raised concerns with the WBG’s internal staff incentive systems. Staff members are
rewarded for quantity of financing, rather than quality. Many staff members still view the safeguards
as transaction costs, rather than a core design feature of a good development project. Furthermore,
the WBG has developed a culture where criticism (both internal and external) is discouraged. As a
result, another participant noted, the WBG lacks mechanisms to learn from past violations of its
safeguard policies, despite the growing body of evidence found in the work of the World Bank
Inspection Panel and IFC Compliance Advisor Ombudsman.
The discussion also raised a number of specific concerns with the existing safeguards, such as:
During the organization of this meeting, several participants mentioned that civil society groups
approached IEG months ago to provide input, and were disappointed that IEG did not approach
civil society groups for a consultation until December, after they already completed data collection,
and only three months before the paper is to be finalized.
In response to a question on whether IEG consulted with affected communities and is considering
the rights of communities, IEG responded that its primary source of information is not based on
feedback from communities. IEG provided an opportunity for global civil society to participate
through an online survey. IEG also sent out a field team for the Chad-Cameroon pipeline.
Participants expressed concern with this methodology, because the purpose of the safeguards system
is to protect affected communities, but their voice is lacking in this research.
There were several questions about the scope of IEG’s research, which seems to exclude issues of
concern for civil society groups. For example, IEG indicated that it would not look at the human
rights dimensions of the safeguard policies, and does not appear to have a staff member with the
skill set necessary to examine the WBG’s consistency with international human rights and
environmental law. IEG is not examining development policy loans, and will not recommend that
the World Bank apply safeguards to them, despite acknowledgement that this is a major gap in
current application of the safeguards. In response to a question on whether the IEG is looking at
how the safeguards relate to the various strategies now underway (reviews of Energy Strategy,
Environment Strategy, and climate change, for example), IEG tends to consider these issues outside
of its mandate.
At the same time, IEG was careful to manage expectations of its report. IEG intends that this report
will begin a longer process of examining and reforming the safeguards, and encouraged civil society
participants to raise their concerns with WBG management. IEG also emphasized the enormous
scope of this research, and the time constraints imposed by the IFC Performance Standard review.
Technically the official Bean Day was yesterday, which is when I meant to write about this, but alas, it was gloomy and chilly and in an attempt to warm it up, I totally forgot Bean Day and posted about spring colors instead. But it’s not like I missed Christmas or anything. Bean day is one of those kooky holidays that lacks a precise origin. According to Holiday Insights, Bean Day is an actual day that’s always celebrated on January 6th but there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Basically it’s just a fun day to focus on beans. Which sounds good to me. Fresh grown beans of all sorts beat dried, frozen, and canned by a giant landslide.
Bean varieties 101: When it comes to munching, beans mainly fall into two large categories – tough podded beans and edible podded beans. Although many go further and divide beans into the following – snap, shell and dry. With tough pods (or shells if you like) the beans are allowed to fully mature on the vine then are picked and the beans are removed before eating. Edible pods (no surprise) means beans that can be eaten pod and all before they reach full maturity. As for growing, there are a couple of bean varieties as well – climbing vine beans and bush beans.
Bean gardening 101: Beans hate the cold. They won’t grow properly in damp and chilly weather. Wait until your soil warms up in the spring to plant outside. I had luck one year growing some Blue Lake Beans inside, in a large container, in a sunny spot before spring hit so if you have a decent sized container this is one option. Beans aren’t too picky about soil nutrients but well-drained soil is a must.
For planting spacing make sure you check your seed packets. Beans vary wildly in space requirements. For example many pole varieties can be grown in garden rows spaced about 25 inches apart and seeds every three inches while some lima beans need more space (plant seeds eight inches apart). But these are just generals, all bean types can vary so make sure you have room in your garden for the type you choose, both vertically and horizontally. Pole beans will need a support. Plant bush beans successively (every two weeks) and plant pole, lima, and shell beans once per season – but of course read up on your specific variety.
Bean harvesting 101: Allow tough shelled beans to mature fully and pick edible pod beans frequently before you see a strained bulge in the pod. One thing about beans is that while they do like warm weather they sometimes stop producing when it gets too hot. Don’t worry too much, just continue to care for your beans and once the hot spell passes they should continue to produce. Don’t pick beans when the plants are wet because it can spread disease among your plants.
Beans are pretty darn easy. However, as always grow a variety suitable for your climate and if you need more help, following are some basic bean growing guides.
[image via stock.xchng]
Post from: Blisstree
The following is an interview with the really cool Lucas Martell, Writer/Director/Producer/Animator of ”Pigeon: Impossible” (viewed 2.8 million times so far since Nov 2009)”. Lucas and I chatted about many things including how the story got fine tuned and tweaked over the four years he made the film. And Lucas’ experience in making “Pigeon: Impossible”, which amazingly is his first CG (computer graphics) animation short. Lucas also created a blog and podcast (also viewable from Lucas’ Youtube channel) to share his experiences in making CG animation using home PCs.
Note: the video for “Pigeon: Impossible” is included at the end of this article.
Here is the film once again. Enjoy.
Posted in animation, Arts, Fun, InterviewByKempton, InterviewByKempton-Arts, united states, Video, YouTube 
Just recently read a post on jkOnTheRun that reported the Alex e-book reader will have access to Borders’ e-book store, which is good news for buying content. However, I’m linking to the Engadget post above because they have a short video showing the Alex in use.
What I found very interesting was that near the end, when they showed how you can navigate an e-book using the touchscreen, I saw that the touchscreen mirrored part of the text on the e-ink screen (it was the same when they browsed to Engadget and were scrolling up and down with the touchscreen). So it seems that this device is able to get around the disadvantage of e-ink devices not being readable in the dark or dim settings (like reading in bed at night) by allowing reading on the touchscreen itself when you need a backlit screen. Cool idea!
I was able to play with a Barnes and Noble Nook a weekend or so ago, and while it was cool to finally see it in person, I did notice that it was laggy when responding to touchscreen presses. It could be that the latest firmware addresses that, not sure. And I couldn’t figure out a way to turn off the touchscreen after I was done with it, just had to wait until the touchscreen timed out itself. Perhaps I just missed something in the controls. With the Alex, the power button turns the screen on and off. I admit that the Alex is probably a little unwieldy with the extra length due to the bigger touchscreen, but conversely, it might work better to have extra real estate to hold onto the device. I’m quite interested to see this device in person as well. So glad to see e-books and e-book readers taking off like this! It’s about damn time. 
The Richell Tiny Tot Pet Caddyoffers a 2-in-1 design that just might make it easier to take kitty to the vet. The top of this contemporary carrier is easily removable, allowing you to use the padded bottom portion as a bed while at home. When it’s time to go, simply snap the top on and kitty has familiar surroundings as she travels.
When the carrier is fully assembled, access is through a tinted top-latched door, making for easy loading and unloading, plus you can see kitty when she’s inside. A safety hook on the front allows for added security and protection when traveling in the car. Remember, it’s important to always strap in your carrier while driving with kitty!
The Richell Tiny Tot Pet Caddyis available in three colors, red, yellow, and blue
for $49.99 US, but blue and yellow are currently on sale for $37.49.
Link to Thread 3 in the Archives. :okay:
Product Description
Enjoy the full benefit of both Laser and LED therapy for both hair and scalp. The laser and light technology in this lightweight handheld device is the same technology used in hair salons worldwide to revitalize thicker, richer looking hair. Dual technology using low level laser technology and LED stimulating therapy. Both of these technologies provide the much needed light energy required for healthy hair. The treatment is cost effective, safe for the home, and… More >>
Viatek Hair Pro Laser Hair Brush
Roger Lowenstein gives Americans permission to do what companies do every day:
1. Ask for a better deal, and/or
2. Walk away.
[V]oluntary defaults are a new phenomenon. Time was, Americans would do anything to pay their mortgage — forgo a new car or a vacation, even put a younger family member to work. But the housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?
Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral — perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with.
Lowenstein makes a good case: The specified penalty for failing to pay your mortgage is that you have to surrender the house. And you’re doing that. So go ahead.
By the way, one advantage of this move, aside from saving underwater homeowners from pouring money down a rat hole, is that it will help fix the housing market faster.
If underwater homeowners walk away, the banks willl be forced to take a writedown on the bad loan instead of pretending that it’s worth what they say it’s worth. This will help the bank clean up its balance sheet faster.
So think of walking away as helping to force banks to do what the government refused to make them do–take their losses!
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
-Friday will mark what would have been Elvis’ 75th birthday, and the folks of the Big Apple are planning a major celebration in Manhattan to commemorate the occasion. The party kicks off Friday Jan., 8, 2010 @ 11:30AM at Ossco Bucco Restaurant, 88 University Place in Greenwich Village. Fans can come on down for free Fried Peanut & Banana Sandwiches; they were Elvis’ favorite. The restaurant will also be serving other Elvis specialities, like country friend steak with gravy from Graceland’s official cookbook, as well as birthday cake. In addition, there’ll be lots of look-alikes and impersonators that have autism and other disabilities performing in honor of the King. Bundle up, they’re predicting snow.
-In related news, The Smithsonian is marking Presley’s Big B-Day with a special exhibit…..
-Did you know H&M destroys their unsold merchandise and throws it in the garbage because they don’t want the homeless and other dumpster divers wearing their designer knockoffs?
–Precious’ Gabby Sidibe for Harper’s Bazaar…..
-According to the Census Bureau, there’s a significant percentage of “my people” who prefer to be referred to as “Negro.” How old are these people again?
-On Thursday, The CW Network announced it will present a special sneak peek of the first ten minutes of its new series Life Unexpected for the network’s Facebook fans beginning Monday, Jan. 11, 2010, a week prior to making its on-air debut Monday, Jan. 18 (9:00-10:00 PM ET). The screening will be offered on all of The CW’s Facebook fan pages, including the main CW page and all CW series pages……
–Tila Tequila, sit’cho ass down!
-Sam Waterston, who has played Jack McCoy on Law & Order since 1994, finally got his star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame….
-A judge orders Charlie Sheen to court…..
–Miami Medical will join the CBS primetime schedule on Friday, April 2 @ 10PM
Link to Thread 1 in the Archives. :okay:
I’m glad I’ve found this place. After looking through the forum history, it looks like I’m the first to share what I’ve spotted at here at YHZ.
Landing Air Canada Embraer 190
Landing Air Canada Jazz CRJ100/200ER
Landing Porter Airlines Dash 8 Q400
Landing WestJet B737
Departing WestJet B737
I hope you enjoy.
08 January 2010
This is the latest image to be released of the masterplan for Tirana Rocks, an urban neighbourhood at the shore of Tirana Lake, in the south of the Albanian capital
Designed by architect Aedas, the two residential towers pictured will provide 8,000m2 of floor space, with 156 units ranging from studios to penthouses. The budget is undisclosed.
Read more: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?…#ixzz0bzZLMwIY
See all 3 parts and share your thoughts.
http://bugu.cntv.cn/news/world/huare…9/118637.shtml
http://bugu.cntv.cn/news/world/huare…9/118356.shtml
http://bugu.cntv.cn/news/world/huare…9/116682.shtml
Enjoy!
In July 2008, Yahoo announced a radical new product called BOSS, or “Build Your Own Search Service” that lets developers tap into Yahoo’s core search index with an unprecedented amount of flexibility. Now, in light of the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal that was announced last summer, the future of BOSS is uncertain. That’s bad news for the many developers who have built projects on the BOSS APIs, some of whom are building businesses off of the service. Now, after being met with months of silence and uncertainty, some BOSS developers are taking action: they’ve scheduled a conference call with the Department of Justice to discuss their concerns.
It’s understandable why the developers are agitated. Google and Bing both offer APIs, but they limit monetization options, limit the ways developers can change the way their search results are presented, and have myriad other restrictions that BOSS doesn’t. All of which means that developers can’t easily port their applications over to one of the alternatives.
A developer identifying himself as “Phil” on the BOSS Yahoo Group sent a letter to the DOJ outlining his concerns. The DOJ has apparently responded, saying that they will hold a conference call with any concerned developers (the group contains instructions for any BOSS developers who wish to join). We have a request in with the DOJ to verifiy that the call is scheduled, but it sounds legitimate.
We’ve reprinted Phil’s letter to the DOJ, which outlines the developers’ concerns, below:
Dear sir/madam,
I represent a group of people who are concerned about a certain aspect of an
antitrust issue which we understand is currently being examined by your office.
The matter at hand is the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Our concern is the following:In July 2008, Yahoo introduced a new program called Yahoo Boss. Boss is a
programming framework (called an API) which allows developers to create new
search engines which use the Yahoo database. In Yahoos own words:“BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is Yahoo!’s open search web services
platform. The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search
industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to
build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search
index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!’s investments in crawling and indexing,
ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure. By combining your
unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform
for the next generation of search innovation, serving hundreds of millions of
users across the Web.”(Quote from http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/)
The reason this program is so important is because before Boss, tens, if not
hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to start a new search engine.
Boss changed all that by making Yahoos own servers and search results available
to third parties. In the year and a half since, tens, if not hundreds of
companies and web developers have spent thousands of hours developing new
websites, web applications and search engines using Yahoo Boss. By May 2009,
Yahoo Boss was serving 30 million search queries a DAY through these websites
(http://www.ysearchblog.com/2009/05/19/key-milestones-for-searchmonkey-and-boss/
). Clearly, Yahoo Boss is a unique program which has been the biggest catalyst
in search engine innovation and competition in years.Google and Microsoft do have their own similar APIS, but they are severely
limited. Googles API gives the user but a small number of search results, while
both Google and Microsofts apis disallow open monetization, thus rendering them
meaningless from a competitive point of view.Over the many months since the Microsoft-Yahoo deal was announced, countless
developers have been asking Yahoo for information on the future of Yahoo Boss,
yet in vain. Yahoo refuses to tell us whether the framework will be shut down or
not. This is even after the two companies announced that all the details of
their deal had been fleshed out. This has given us the distinct feeling that the
decision to shut down Boss has already been made, but that they prefer to keep
that quiet in order to not “rock the boat”.Obviously, this is of great concern to us. In addition to all the time and work
we have put in, Boss is the ONLY factor which has allowed broad and viable
competition in the search engine industry. Shutting down Boss would by default
mean shutting down all the websites using it, in addition to signifying the end
to the aforementioned competition.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
Wii Remotes continue to be rather expensive, running you around $39.99 for just the wand. Nyko is aiming to mitigate that though, introducing their own remote for the same price, but with at least one feature included from the start.
That would be the Wii MotionPlus peripheral, which is built right into the new Nyko Wand+. According to Nyko, “By building the technology into the controller, the Wand+ provides all the functionality Wii gamers expect, plus the versatility and convenience they deserve; no more dongles, no more custom sleeves or incompatibility with docks and other accessories not able to accommodate attached dongles.”
The Wii MotionPlus allows for 1:1 motion tracking ability, and it features heavily in games like Wii Sports Resort, as well the upcoming Legend of Zelda. Purchasing one will not only get you an extra controller for something like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, it’ll save you the extra $19.99 that a MotionPlus would cost.
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
Gallery: LG X300 hands-on
LG X300 hands-on: thin, light, and handsome originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
Continue reading Netgear’s Push2TV wireless TV adapter gets official, decidedly Intel only
Netgear’s Push2TV wireless TV adapter gets official, decidedly Intel only originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | 
Netgear | Email this | Comments
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
Well, we just got a demo of the L5 Remote at ShowStoppers and we’re glad to report that the IR accessory for iPhone / iPod touch works exactly as promised. The IR signals are outputted by a small dongle that attaches to the dock connector of your device that works in conjunction with a free app from the company. During our first attempt at a demo, the software — which is still in BETA version — crashed, but the same can’t be said the second time around. Programming a new device is as easy as pointing any IR device at the receiver and pressing the buttons that the app dictates. Programming multiple rooms, changing button layouts, and managing multiple devices is a snap, though we wish you didn’t have to use the iPhone upside down to use it. According to reps on site, it should be shipping by the end of February, and once it does, you’ll never have to worry about losing a remote again.
Gallery: L5 iPhone remote hands-on
Continue reading L5 iPhone IR dongle / remote software hands-on
L5 iPhone IR dongle / remote software hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
